Natural (or
organic) search is the term used to describe the results displayed on
the left
hand side of a search engine results page based on a specific keyword
query.
The listings on the top and right hand side of the page are paid
sponsored
links. Below is an example of a Google results page for the search
query “New
England Weddings”.

Why do I Need to Optimize my
Hotel
Website?

You optimize
your website by selecting keywords and phrases that are relevant to
each
individual page and placing them in the content and code of your
website.
Google sends out ‘spiders’ that crawl your site and index it according
to your
keywords.

When we searched
the phrase ‘New England Weddings’ Google displayed 26,000,000 ‘natural’
listings. The listings are placed in order with precedent given to the
sites
that Google considers to be most important and relevant to the keyword
query.
It does this by taking into account many factors of the website
including the
keywords, the quantity and quality of links to the site, and if the
site is
being updated frequently with fresh content.

The main
objective in optimizing your website is to have it appear on the first
page of
the natural listings, or at least in the top three, of the results of a
search
query. You can also achieve this by using paid sponsored ads (or
Pay-Per-Click)
for the chosen keyword, however there are many studies that reveal that
searchers prefer the natural results because they consider them more
credible
and relevant. One such study recorded by Conductor,
a leading provider of analytics and optimization solutions, revealed
that 80%
of all activity occurs in the natural search space.

By optimizing your site for natural search you can appear higher in the
search engine results page which will drive more traffic to your
website.

How do I Optimize my Hotel
Website for
Natural Search?

The first thing
you should do is analyze your current situation and your website
status. Are
you optimizing an existing site or could your website use a re-design?
Either
way, make sure that your site is created in HTML, as opposed to Flash,
so that
the spiders can crawl it. You can have some Flash elements on the page
but the
navigation and content must be HTML.
Step One: Keyword Research

It is crucial
for Search Engine Optimization that you select relevant keywords that
your
target audience is searching on. You must select keywords for each page
of your
site e.g. the homepage would have one set of words and phrases and the
restaurant page would have another. First you should brainstorm a list
of
possible keywords. Then you need to do research to expand your list,
see what
your competitors are doing, and check to see how many people are
searching on
your chosen keywords and phrases.

Use the free Google
Adwords
Keyphrase Research Tool which will allow you to enter a keyword or
phrase,
in this case “New England Weddings”, and will give you a list of other
related
keywords that you may not have thought of. Below is a screenshot of a
few of
the alternative words that Google offered us when we typed in “New
England
Weddings” in the Google Adwords Keyphrase Research Tool. You can also
see
important statistics on local search volume, global search volume and
volume
trends. As you can see under the local search there were 2,900 searches
on “New
England Weddings” as opposed to 9,900 searches on the singular version
“New
England Wedding”.

You should also
see what your competitors are using for keywords. You can use these
words as a
reference but don’t assume that they are the best keywords. In the
Google
Adwords Keyphrase Research tool you are able to enter a competitor’s
url and
Google will index the site and give you keyword categories and related
words.
You can also see what your competitors’ keywords are by using tools
such as SEO Digger, SpyFu,
and KeywordSpy
. You have to pay for
these sites but you can download a free trial.
Step Two: Place the Keywords in your
Content and Code

Once you have
your list of chosen keywords you need to embed them in the content and
code of
your website.

Website Content
Spiders are
attracted to text that is bold or larger than the rest of the content
so you
should make sure to use your keywords in your page titles and
subtitles. Your
keywords should also appear a few times throughout the body copy.

Meta titles
The meta title
appears at the top of an open webpage. The title of the page is one of
the most
important ranking factors for a website. Each page should have a
different meta
title with different keywords. If you repeat titles you could confuse
the
search engines as to which page is more relevant for a chosen keyword.
Below is
O’Rourke’s meta title ‘Hotel Website Design & Hotel Web
Optimization’ for
our website design page on our site.

Meta Description
Meta description is the short blurb about
your hotel that appears under your hotel name in the Results Page of
Google
after someone searches on your hotel. This should also contain your
keywords
and be unique to each page.

Meta Tags
The meta tags
are pieces of code where you can also embed your keywords. These are
not as
important to Google as they were in the past but you can still use
them. When
you are on a website you can view the code by selecting View/Page
Source.

Alt Tags
The alt-tags use
text to describe your images in the code. You should write your
keywords in
these descriptions.

Step 3: Linking

Internal Linking
The content of
your website should contain internal links that link to other pages on
your
website. You should place relevant keywords in the anchor text of the
link. The
anchor text is the actual text in a hyperlink which is often underlined
and in
blue. For example if you are on the home page and you want to direct
the user
to your weddings page don’t just write click here but enter your
keywords such as Rhode Island Weddings at Hotel Name. A solid internal
linking structure can help the ‘spiders’ read your page, build the
relevancy of
a page to a keyword phrase, and increase your page rank.

External Links
External links
are links to your site that reside on other websites or directories. A
comprehensive linking strategy can increase your website visibility,
bring more
traffic to your website, and improve your Google Page Rank. Google Page
Rank is
a ranking system that gives your website a score from 0-10. The ranking
is
based on various factors including the quantity and quality of external
links.

There are a few
things to consider when setting up external links. The most effective
links are
those that are placed on sites that focus on the same keyword phrases
your site
focuses on. For example, if you have a hotel website, your link should
be
placed on hospitality industry related sites as opposed to websites
that have
nothing to do with hotels.

Google also
gives more ‘votes’ to links that reside on high quality websites that
are
considered authoritative in their topic. Your link will hold more ‘link
juice’,
a term referring to the quality or weight that a website can pass on to
other
sites through relevant links, if it is placed on a page that has only a
few
links as opposed to being mixed in with a long list. You will
need to invest some time and effort
to build links. The best way is through networking and referrals. If
you build
relationships with clients, vendors, and business partners then you may
ask
them if they would mind putting your link up on their site.

Another great
way to get links to your site is by writing articles and press releases
with
relevant content that will be interesting to your market. If your hotel
is
trying to book more weddings you could submit an article to bridal
websites
with tips on “what makes a great wedding” and put a link to your
weddings page
on your website. You should also optimize your articles and press
releases with
relevant keywords. It is important to place your articles on your blog
for SEO
purposes. You can also place links to your blog in your articles and
press
releases.

An easy way to
start building links is by listing with regional and local directories.
There
are also many business directories where you can list your hotel such
as GoGuides.Org, JoeAnt, Skaffe.com, Best of the Web, and Yahoo Directory. You could also look
for hotel
associations and organizations. List with the Chamber of Commerce and
other
city directories.
Step 4: Add Fresh Content

Fresh content
helps keep your website current and it pings Google to crawl your site.
You can
add fresh content by sending out blogs which are very useful to hotels.
You can
also post press releases and articles to your site. Another great way
to get
fresh content is to set up an RSS
Feed on your site and have relevant news stream in.

We hope you have
found these tips helpful. If you have any questions please feel free to
call us
at 978-465-5955 or write an email at info@orourkehospitality.com